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Gujarat Riots |
Crime Against Humanity
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Zahira is still the victim : Setalvad
The Times of India 10 November 2004
Times News Network
Mumbai : “Zahira is not the culprit. She was the victim at the start of the trial. She is still the victim.” activist Teesta Setalvad said here on Tuesday.
She was speaking at a meeting held by several organisations from across the state to express solidarity with her and her partners in the cause. The meeting came in response to the doubts cast over Setalvad’s credibility after the star witness in the Best Bakery case, Zahira Sheikh, alleged that Setalvad was pressurising her: “We need to see Zahira not as a villain, but as a victim,” said lawyer Mihir Desai. Speakers from social groups, trade union leaders and film-makers urged the public to understand the circumstances under which the 20-year-old had turned hostile.
Women’s rights activist Flavia Agnes said it was not a fight between two women, Teesta and Zahira, but one of justice versus injustice. “There are many more players who we need to identify in this case. There is a right-wing government, a biased police force, an extremely slow judicial system, and hostile members of both communities,” said Agnes, adding that there was no need to judge Zahira, but an urgent need to change the entire system of justice delivery.
Setalvad told the gathering that the accounts of her group, Citizens for Justice and Peace, were transperent, and were open to scrutiny. She was reacting to allegations made shortly after Zahira’a statement in Gujarat that in functioning of NGOs should be probed. “What about probing the two most opaque NGOs in the country – the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad?” asked Desai.
Ram Punyani of the people’s group, Ekta, suggested that citizens attend the court hearings to extend their support and sympathy to the witnesses, who is the absence of a proper witness-protection scheme were subject to all manner of pressures and influences.
Justice (retd) Hosbet Suresh emphasised that the case of the prosecution remained strong, and that the retrial and the supreme court’s order to move the case of Maharashtra had not taken place because of Setalvad, but because of Zahira’s own appeals to the judiciary and to the Human Rights Commission, as well as the irregularities that were evident in the Gujarat court’s handling of the case, in which all the accused were acquitted.
Justice Suresh warned that under section 145 of the Evidence Act, the judge could confront Zahira with her previous statements, and that the court could slap contempt of court charges on those who had prevented her from deposing in Mumbai.. |
